Ruptured
by bikelock28
Summary: "All that make-up, cheeriness, West Side Story bullshit- she's covering up the fact that she's living in a dangerous fantasy world. She's sick. You're a person with a problem but Lorna's sick, she's ill in the head and she needs help". Nicky's PoV of her and Morello's big moment in 1.10 Little Mustachioed Shit.


**These two fascinate me. This is a wonderful, sweet, sad moment between them. T for language because duh, Nicky. I don't own** ** _OITNB,_** **and almost all the dialogue in this scene was written by Sian Heder, not me.**

Ruptured

"Morello, you have a visitor. Report to visitation, Morello,"

Lorna glances up at the speakers at the sound of her name. She frowns, her eyebrows quirking adorably. Every fuckin' thing she does she does adorably.

"That's you, kid," you tell her, smiling.

"I'm...I'm not expecting anybody," Morello mutters, pushing her chair backwards to stand up, "Maybe i's my sister...jeez, I hope there's nothin' wrong". Immediately, she starts fixing her hair. It's the last thing you could see yourself doing, and it makes you smirk. Sometimes it's real, real hard being friends with Morello because you're so Goddamn in love with her, but recently you've been in a good place. Friends, hanging out, enjoying each other's company, making each other laugh. You can watch her, touch her occasionally if it isn't too obvious, listen to all the ridiculous shit that comes out of her mouth.

"Lookin' hot," you say with a nod.

"Okay," Lorna replies seriously, giving your shoulder a brush as she darts out of the TV room. You watch her as she leaves, smiling to yourself. Turning back to the television, you catch sight of Gina skulking in the window, eyeing you like she's the world's worst spy.

 _"_ _Stop!"_ you groan, "Or at least get in here where I can see you,"

Gina strolls into the room, strutting like some Nazi supervillian with her arms folded across her chest.

"How much longer is this shit gonna go on for?" you grumble.

Gina's arms stay folded. She looks down at you seriously. "You need to take it to Red,"

Crap. She must have seen this morning. You play dumb; "I don't know you're talkin' about,"

Gina gives you a look which says _don't bullshit me,_ and it grates on you. Who does she think she is, your doctor? Your therapist? Red? "You really think I'm gonna throw away two years of sobriety for one little high?" you ask her, glaring, "I saw Trish get wheeled outa here in a body bag. How stupid do you think I am?"

Gina stares you down. It is a ridiculous sight. She looks like twelve-year-old boy so her acting all Bad Cop is dumb and embarrassing. "I don't have time for this," you mumble, standing up. You push past Gina, go out into the corridor and follow it down to visitation, blocking thoughts of the heroin from your head. You'll deal with that later. Right now, you'll loiter outside the visitation room window to find out who it is whose come to see Lorna unexpectedly. Probably her sister; she visits a lot. She looks like Lorna but taller, not as pretty. Kinda horse-like to be honest. Big earrings and lots of make-up- you imagine that Lorna dressed similarly before she was in here.

When you get to the window you scan the room for Morello and her surprise guest. She's at a table by the window, opposite a tall white guy who's gesticulating energetically with his hands. It isn't her brother- you've seen Mikey before. This fella's too WASPy to be any family member, and you don't recognise him as one of Morello's friends who visit occasionally. Is it- could it be Christopher? _The_ Christopher? No way. He's marrying someone else, you saw it yourself in the newspaper (to be honest, you were surprised to find out that he was actually a real person). Lorna's got her back to you so you can't see her face, but her shoulders look tense and Possibly Christopher is staring at her intently. He's the one doing the talking, and he doesn't look happy. "To stop me?" he says, or something like that.

Excited, you rap on the window. Lorna wheels round and Possibly Christopher stares at you.

"Is that him?" you mouth eagerly, pointing.

And then Lorna Morello does the strangest thing. She nods a little and brings hand up towards her face. It could be that she's fiddling with her hair, but it isn't. You know it isn't. She's covering her face from you. Hiding. For a moment you're resignedly irritated- of course Lorna wouldn't want her precious Christopher suspecting her of being fuck-buddies with someone who looks like you do- but, moving over a little to get a better view, you see Morello's face. Panic and hurt.

"What is that?" demands Christopher, pointing at you. At least you reckon that's what he says- you can't quite hear properly. You press your head against the plastic window and concentrate hard. And holy shit. _Holy fucking shit._ "Are you trying to keep up this lunatic charade?!" Christopher interrogates, "Pretend that I'm your boyfriend?!"

Shit. Shit shit shit. Morello shakes her head, her eyes facing down. Christopher stands up furiously, sending the chair clattering.

"I don't know this woman, okay?" he bellows, addressing the whole room. Morello sinks into her seat, head bowed. "We went on one date. _One._ She's a fucking stalker" he spits. Ford, the CO on desk, makes his way over and says something to Christopher which you can't hear. Christopher replies, jabbing his finger at Lorna, and the Ford pushes him away, hustling him out of the visitation room. Lorna flinches as he passes her.

"She- you know she broke out of here, right? She's a psycho bitch," Christopher accuses savagely. There's another crash and you see Lorna half-staggering, half-falling out of her chair as if he's shoved her. She lands against the wall and you hear a sob. Kid cries a lot over all sorts of silly stuff, but you don't blame for crying during this. This is horrible.

"I'm not the criminal here," Christopher insists as he's escorted out. Lorna's eyes watch him leave. Then they flick to you, and you have no clue, no idea on Earth, what to do or what to say. Morello glances away from you, smiles at nobody in particular, and dashes out of the visitation room.

You close your eyes slowly, knocking you head against the window. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck _fuuuuuck._ So that's what she's in prison for. You vaguely recall a conversation about fraud, but that must have been a lie. This is the truth. Christopher is real. But what Morello said she had with him wasn't. You try to remember how long her sentence is- three years, maybe? Four? She must have done some pretty dreadful stuff to get that long. Poor kid. Poor deluded, crazy stalker psycho bitch.

You have to go after her.

Shoving your hands into your pockets, you follow the corridor past the visitation room, taking a glance into a store closet to see if Lorna has shut herself away in there. Nope, it's only full of mops, deckscrub and "wet floor" signs. ( _Of course she wouldn't be in the store closet,_ you think to yourself, _hide away and avoid attention? This is Lorna Morello we're talking about. Not a chance._ But this isn't crying over a movie or the other dumb stuff she gets stupidly emotional about. This was a really fucked-up, humiliating thing to happen. And you have to admit that the fact that you witnessed their confrontation makes it worse. You don't kid yourself that Morello loves you, at least not in the way you love her, but she cares about what you think of her, looks up to you a little. You're the last person she'd want to have watched the scene which just unfolded. You feel your throat tighten as if you're about to cry. You were only looking out for her and you've made her humiliation so much worse. Even why you try to be a good friend you ruin things.

Memories of Morello flick through your head as you jog down the corridor- all the times she mentioned Christopher, her wedding magazines, her interrogations about if you thought they should serve chicken or lamb at the reception, cutesy stories about them. You'd long suspected those stories weren't true, but not that they weren't true like this. Jesus Christ, she's out of her mind. Seriously. Forget Warren, Lorna Morello's the one who should be nicknamed Crazy Eyes.

"You seen Morello?" you ask a couple of girls as pass in the corridor.

"Who?"

"Never mind," you groan. You briefly consider calling her name but come on, this isn't a fuckin' movie. If you start acting all rom-com you're as bad as Lorna- _oh_ , you realise suddenly, _that isn't funny anymore. All those romcoms made her dangerous._ You pass a staircase, glancing down it to see nobody. Growling, you hurry on- but the sound of a sob stops you. You hurry back to the stairs, run down the first flight, turn to the corner to the next flight- and she's there. Leaning against the wall with her back to you, head bent, one hand dabbing at her face.

"Hey. _Heyyyy,"_ you coo, going over to Morello and laying your hand on her shoulder, "Hey,"

Lorna mutters a couple of words but they disappear into a sob, "S'okay. S'okay. Come on," you murmur, leading her down a couple of steps and pulling her gently down beside you. You stroke her back as Morello's sobs turn to gasps.

"Shh. Baby- listen- ssh," you mutter, putting your other hand on her knee. It's trembling. "Breathe. C'mon, Lorna, breathe," you suggest. You hate comforting people. You never know what to say. You pride yourself on always having a smart comeback, a wisecrack, a one-liner, but right now you're drawing a blank, and "shh", "breathe" and "s'okay," aren't going to last much longer.

Abruptly, Lorna stops gasping through sobs and announces in a hoarse voice, "I'm crazy". She nods to herself, glances at you and continues, "I'm a crazy person. There is somethin' _really_ wrong with me,"

 _There is. Holy crap, Lorna, you're fucked up. You're so fucked up._ You feel like crying too.

But you don't. Instead, you point out vaguely, "Ehh, there's something wrong with all of us. Otherwise we wouldn't be in here". It isn't just prison. Everybody's broken in some way. But not everybody stalks a guy they've been on one date with and gets a three-year prison sentence for it.

Morello shakes her head and whispers, "No. I did something bad. Really bad". She's looking deep into your eyes and makes your heart lurch. What's more, you're fascinated- and yes, _excited-_ to find out what she exactly did to Christopher to get herself locked up in here...but Morello doesn't tell you about what she did on the outside that was bad. She tells you; "When I was supposed to be at the hospital, I stole the van...and I went to his house in Albany,"

What the fuck? What the _fuck?_ No way. "Are you serious?" you shoot back, keeping your voice low. Lorna nods, giving you once of her Disney Princess smiles. It makes you want to hit her. She thinks it was some kind of cute romantic joke? She stole from the prison, she _ran away._ That's _insane._ That's terrible. Of all the insane things she's apparently done, that's...God. _God,_ this girl.

"Do you know what could happen if you got caught?" you snarl. You've had your hand in her hair, and now you grip it. Not hard enough to pull, but enough for her to feel it. You look into her eyes because you have _got_ to get this into her head, "They charge you with _felony escape,_ triple your sentence". Stealing a van to escape is worse than drug smuggling or assaulting inmates. In Caputo's eyes it's probably as bad as trying to _kill_ another inmate.

"I know," she nods, ashamed, her mish-mash accent strangling the O-sound into a whine, "Believe me, I know," but you're not sure that she does. You want to shake her and slap her, and not in a sexy way.

"Don't fucking do that again," you command, adding, "Ya maniac". It's real prison, not a Goddamn movie. Hell would rain down on her is anybody found out. " _Seriously._ It's a miracle that you didn't get caught". But you can't help but smile at that. However much of a headcase she might be, she got fucking lucky this time.

Lorna half-smiles and you run your fingers down the side of her face. You love the feel of her bones, so close to the surface under her skin.

"I just wanted to _see_ him," Morello sobs, "But he's so mean. I mean, he's _really_ mean," you blanch for a second. Yeah, he _was_ mean but the way she says it sounds...you're not sure. It doesn't sound right. It doesn't sound like she's in reality. After this, should you be surprised? "He's not the man that I thought he was,"

 _And you're not the girl I thought you were, Morello,_ you think sadly. _You're not the girl you're pretending to be._ All that make-up, cheeriness, West Side Story bullshit- she's covering up the fact that she's living in a dangerous fantasy world. She's sick. You're a person with a problem but Lorna's _sick,_ she's ill in the head and she needs help.

She pounces towards you suddenly, grasping onto your shoulders. "Do you hate me?". Her voice is a squeak.

You snort with laughter because the idea is so preposterous. Even after all this. "No, I don't hate you". _I love you, you nut-wack straight girl._ You can't help the laugh spilling into your next sentence. "It's getting clearer every second that you're totally batshit crazy". Morello makes a noise between a laugh and a sob. "But you're a beautiful, sweet girl". She's racist, she's naive, she's out of her mind and God she's so pretty. 'Pretty'- a dumb, childish word but that's what Morello is. Neat, pointed features, clear and pale skin, doe eyes and the most kissable lips you've ever seen, not to mention bone structure like a freakin' _angel._ Again, that's not romanticism, it's accurate.

"Fuck this guy," you tell her and of course that sets her off crying again, even though she nods in agreement.

"So many people are gonna love you," you say, your voice slipping that soft mushy tone- the one often use when you're making fun of somebody, hitting on a girl or make someone feel sorry for you. But here it's unintentional and real and sympathetic. So many people. Just not Christopher.

"No," Morello replies firmly, looking down at the stairs, "Nobody's gonna love me". And that, more than anything else about this whole crazy, pathetic situation, is what kills you. Because you know that feeling exactly. That feeling- no, not a feeling, it's a _knowledge,_ a resignation to truth- has been your entire life. A mother who saw you as an unwanted pet and so packed you off with nannies. A father who your mom never talked about, because she never talked about anything to you. Nannies who were kind but who didn't stick around for longer than a couple of years. Grandparents, aunties and uncles who you hardly saw and who had contracted Marka's opinion of you. Friends- sure, there had been friends along the way, at school and soccer and music class. Some had even been close friends, but you were never good at keeping in touch. As you got older the whole lesbian thing put a few friends off, but it did open doors (and legs) to girlfriends. You've had some _great_ girlfriends, a couple who'd even told you that they loved you. But Marka said that too and that was bullshit. You knew when you were three years old that "I love you" rarely meant _I love you._ Besides, commitment to those girlfriends wasn't exactly your strong point, no matter how fantastic they were at going down on you. And then came drugs. Through drugs, came friends. Different types of people, all connected through heroin, through needing an escape. You had fun together, you laughed, you cried. But love? No. You despise the cliché about loving drugs more than people because you know it's true. And then of course you ended up in prison. Nicky Nichols: A Life With No Love- there's one for ya, Mr Polanski.

But Morello? Morello doesn't shut up about love. Morello _lives_ for love. Christopher aside, there's her brother and sister, her dad, her little fat nephew. They look like a tacky bunch, they're noisy, the little boy throws things and bangs the table at visitation, Lorna's always complaining that her brother's a layabout- but they love each other. Her mom can't visit but she sends cards. Lorna knows what love feels like; she's obsessed with it. Once you peel off the many, many layers of fucked-uppery surrounding this whole Christopher thing, at its core is love. A dangerous love, but a love all the same. Like you and heroin. Lorna's so obsessed with love that she'll lie to herself that she's marrying Christopher together even when she's in prison for stalking him, that she'll steal a van and risk another ten years in this place. And you? Well, you've never been loved, but you _can_ love. You do. Drugs obviously, and sex, but people too. You've loved your nannies, a few of your friends, a girlfriend or two for a moment. Red. And Morello. Always Morello.

"I do". Your voice is hoarse. Her hair is smooth against your fingers. Morello meets your eyes for a long moment, a moment in which a lot of things happen: you remember the taste of her mouth, her nipples, her stomach, her hip bone, her pussy. You think about her routines, like the way she puts her make-up on. You see her driving the van. You think about her Christopher stories and wedding obsession. You visualise about her in the hospital carpark, making the decision to go find him. You wonder how she knew his address, you visualise her driving there, stopping outside. You imagine what would happen if she got caught and you imagine her being dragged off to Max. You hear her laugh. You hear her strangled vowels and overchewed consonants. You think about the dumb racist shit she says and the way she gets her idioms mixed up. You remember the taste of her mouth, her nipples, her stomach, her hip bone, her pussy, her ribs, her shoulders, her neck, her jaw, her eyelashes, her lips. Her lips. You think about how you're not so different from each other after all: You're both hopelessly in love with people who don't love you back.

"Come here," you say softly. Lorna lets herself fall onto you, and your hand goes up to her shoulder so that you're fully embracing. One of her hands clings to your forearm, the other to your leg. Morello exhales snottily onto your undershirt. _I love you,_ you say in your head, _I love you so much._ You rub her back, shaking your head in sadness and confusion and exhaustion. Prison is so exhausting sometimes.

You stay like this for a long time; holding her, rocking her, stroking her hair, dropping kisses onto her forehead. Then, because this is prison, you're interrupted abruptly by one of the black girls hollering, "Hey, you two wanna take your pussy party someplace else? People try'na use these stairs,"

You glare at her, although to be honest you know that you'd be doing the same if it was somebody else blocking the staircase.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Lorna gabbles hastily, in her cutesy Lorna way. She disentangles herself from you and immediately you miss her touch, although you're pretty sure it should be the other way around considering she's the one with the broken heart (well actually you've got a broken heart too, but the literal kind). She stands up, smoothing down her uniform while the black girl kisses her teeth at you and continues down the stairway, a couple of her cronies following behind.

You nudge Morello with your elbow and suggest, "What's say you and I go play some Go Fish, yeah?"

Lorna nods, then catches herself, grips your shoulder and begs, "Don't tell anyone. I'm serious, Nichols, please don't let Red or Chapman hear about this. They'll think I'm-

"Hey," you say, cupping her face, "I won't. I promise". Being around Morello makes you drop your usual wisecracks. Being around Morello you use half the words you usually would. Perhaps you don't need words around her.

"Thanks," she replies quietly. You shrug. Lorna nods to herself, sniffs, and leans into you as you put your arm around her shoulders to lead her back to the dorms.

 **Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed. I loved writing this fic, so please review to let me know what you thought of it.**


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